The Asian approach to web hosting site design

There is no denying that there are some significant cultural differences between East and West. Since we here at Pingdom deal a lot with web hosting companies and are generally interested in the hosting industry, we have on occasion stumbled upon some Asian hosting websites which to our Western eyes have a very different look (and not just because we can’t read a word 😉 ).

This post has screenshots of some interesting examples from Japan, China and South Korea. The designs are sometimes strikingly different from what you would expect to see from a Western hosting company website, and often quite charming.

Cute animals

Some other general observations

For us in Europe at least, websites in China, Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries tend to load really slowly.

You basically can’t find a Chinese hosting website that doesn’t offer some form of live support chat.

Did we mention that we really don’t understand a word on these websites?

And before anyone makes this comment: There are of course plenty of examples where the hosting website looks more or less like a conventional Western website. But that wouldn’t have been much fun to look at, would it? 😉

Actually, I think they’re quite charming. In addition, people in Asia tend to read most if not all of the information, unlike most Americans who tend to skim through content. It’s cultural differences, really.